Hue Jackson says Al Davis offered him GM job

Former Raiders coach Hue Jackson told Sports Illustrated this week that before being hired as offensive coordinator in 2010, owner Al Davis offered him the position of general manager.

Jackson says he turned it down because his passion is coaching and working with players.

Furthermore, Jackson said he didn’t take the offensive coordinator job with an eye (and maybe even a plan with Davis) on taking Tom Cable’s head-coaching job, as it is widely believed. Davis did not like Cable and gave Jackson his job after the 2010 season.

Cable went 8-8 in 2010, then Jackson went 8-8 in 2011 and, after Davis passed away, was fired by new general manager Reggie McKenzie. (New coach Dennis Allen took over and went 4-12 and kept his job, many Raiders fans who are reading this are now screaming.)

Jackson actually got to play GM for a while after Davis passed, and was the catalyst behind trading a first- and second-round pick for quarterback Carson Palmer. It was a go-for-it now trade for a rebuilding team that set things back rather than help, as Oakland lost four out of five games down the stretch in 2011.

When the Raiders made the trade, Jackson took credit for it and then after the season, he tried to pass the buck to new owner Mark Davis, who he also said was behind firing him and not McKenzie. …

But that’s all in the past, Jackson said this week. (Which begs the question, why does he keep bringing up the past then, with new nuggets each time? I wonder what Jackson will say Al Davis told him next year.)

“Rather than live in the past, Jackson, who’ll coach the Bengals’ running backs this season, wants to look ahead. He says he’s seeking nothing more than an opportunity, which he really hasn’t gotten since being fired. Despite breathing life into an Oakland offense that was among the walking dead, taking it from 197 points the year before his arrival to 357 points in his first season, he has been interviewed just twice for a coordinator job, in St. Louis in 2012 and Carolina this year.

“I get surprised by some of the things that are said about me,” Jackson said. “Look, I’m not shy. A lot of people in this business go along to get along, and I respect that. But when you ask me an honest question, I’m going to give you an honest answer. I don’t think some people like that sometimes. But this thing is about winning. That’s what it’s always been. Some people don’t like that. Some people run from confrontation. I don’t run from confrontation. I never have. Some people want you to cower, and there is a time for all of that. But if you ask me something I’m going to tell you.

“Everybody is not for everybody. I’m very vocal, I’m very vocal with my players, I’m very confident in what I’m able to do, and sometimes people take that the wrong way. But I can’t worry about what the next man is thinking. My challenge is, go look at what I’ve coached, who I’ve coached, go talk to the players and ask them. If you did that you’d get an entirely different description of me.”

Jackson is a a great offensive coordinator but is viewed by many head coaches as some0ne who wants their job NOW and by many executives as someone who doesn’t know how to stay in his lane and constantly feels the need to draw attention to himself.

“You have to separate the personal from the professional,” one executive told Trotter. “The professional isn’t the problem with Hue — it’s the personal. The person that hires him (as a coordinator or head coach) is going to have to be comfortable with the personal, because this business is all about relationships.”